Customer Reviews: Read 64 more reviews...
 Works with WinXP and Macbook Air May 10, 2008
Ei Fujioka (Durham, NC United States)
25 out of 26 found this review helpful
I bought this item a month ago as a backup storage for a Dell desktop running Windows XP Home and a Macbook Air. It works great for both Win and Mac. No problem getting power from the USB ports of the two machines.
I especially like such portability of this item that I can bring it to my office on weekdays and take backups. It provides enough storage for my office PC and two home computers.
It's shipped with Fat32 and I needed to reformat it with NTFS so that large backup files, say, 40GB, can be saved. For Macbook Air, I spared a partition and formatted it with HFS. I don't keep it connected to one of the two machines as I don't run daily backups. Instead, I connect it to one of them once in a while, say, once in two weeks and run Windows Backup manually. As for the Air, Time Machine is smart enough to start backup automatically when the Air recognizes the drive.
For safety, I also use the bundled NTI Shadow to backup music files and pictures from my digital camera. File based backups are quite simple and convenient and easy to restore in case of emergency. This is one of the reasons I bought this item when you could choose Western Digital's Passport. I read some reviews claiming that the software shipped with Passport doesn't work.
NTI Shadow works fine and as I mentioned above, it's file based backup and I'm 100% sure that the backup files can be restored as I can open them from this drive!
If you use different backup software, you could go for Western Digital's and save a few bucks. But I also liked the design of Toshiba's better than WD's.
In short, I'm very satisfied with this item.
Easy to use, reliable June 6, 2008
DCSenators (Washington, DC)
23 out of 24 found this review helpful
I've been using this for only a few months, but I travel with it frequently, and I've dropped it twice; and still have had no problems at all. I use it with a MacBook and an "old" (~2001) Toshiba laptop with no compatibility issues. I find the speed acceptable, the price was right, and the convenience great.
A note for non-laptop users: the USB cord included with this harddrive is very short (very 6 inches?). This is fantastic on a desk with my laptop and my USB drives right there, but if you have to reach in back of your computer to plug things in, you might want a longer cord. It uses the standard USB cable that seems to come with about 95% of my computer electronics, so you probably already have one.
Fast, light weight and silent May 18, 2008
Arnie (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
I purchased this external HD mainly for backups of my HP laptop and my wife's Mackbook. The main reason for choosing this model was that it is one of the few units that can startup without a 2-1 USB cable for extra energy. Macbooks strictly follows the 500mA current limit standard for USB ports so a lot of external drives that are powered directly from the USB cannot spin up without using two USB ports. This model works flawless with only one standard USB port.
Pros:
- No external power adapter (powered by the USB port);
- Small form factor;
- Light weight (light like an iPod);
- Beautifull design;
Cons:
- None so far, worked fine since I bought it one month ago;
portable, bus-driven, inexpensive, compatible March 17, 2008
willie (pineapple park, FL, USA)
42 out of 54 found this review helpful
this drive currently represents the top tier in a new three-drive lineup of portable, bus-driven, inexpensive and compatible USB hard drives from Toshiba... the drives are lightweight and pocketable - perfect for out-of-the-way storage or easy transport of loads of data... each drive comes loaded w/backup software for OS X and, if you unfortunately use it, the OS from the monopoly in Redmond. Linux users will just plug in the drive and go to work (GNU gzip, cp, dd, cpio, Amanda, star, glastree, etc.)... no CD of the backup software is included, so make any copies before repartitioning or reformatting the drive...
in my case, i plugged the unit into my 20" iMac, then clicked to reformat and use the drive as a Time Machine backup unit under OS X 10.5.2 - works great! a small blue led in a top corner of the drive flickers as data is being transferred... the drive is silent and stays cool, despite being a sealed unit (no visible screws, and obviously, no internal drive replacement intentionally possible)....
performance is good, as the interface is USB 2.0 (480Mbps)... (a portable firewire 800 drive [800Mbs] would have been better for my needs, but then i would have spent almost three times as much for a drive of similar capacity and features)...
all in all, i like this drive - it is a bargain for its storage capacity... if i had any complaint, it's that the drive must lay flat, unlike the Maxtor One-touch portable series...
very good product May 13, 2008
farad
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I've had this drive for over 2 months now and I have no right to complain about it. I'm very satisfied with the product. I bought it mainly to back up my music and videos and install my games on it. You would think that the games would run slower but no, not at all. I've played my games from the C drive and then installed them on this drive and played them from there (games such as: NFS, Battlefield, Call of Duty, Rainbow six and so on). No difference. In fact, when I deleted the games from the C drive, and got more free space, the games ran even faster. So it all depends on your computer. If it can handle the games on its own, then playing them from this hard drive won't make a difference what so ever. It's very light, small, looks good too, and doesn't warm up or make any noises. Still couldn't find the RPM of it. It doesn't say anywhere, but at this point I don't even care. It satisfies all my needs.
P.S. It won't show 320 GB. It will be about 298, but that's with all the drives and memory cards. I assume you all know that.
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